


Talk It Out

by cyren2132



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Comfort, Gen, Grief, Loss of Parent(s), Season/Series 01, pre-ship if you want to read it that way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-10 21:52:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11700597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyren2132/pseuds/cyren2132
Summary: Trip was there for her before, and now T'Pol is returning the favor.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm watching Enterprise essentially for the first time and the episode Breaking The Ice (1.08), where Trip intercepted a secret message for T'Pol was the genesis for this story. I just...I wanted it to be different than it was, so I wrote this to replace it. While I've been spoiled on some broad strokes, I know very few details, so any similarity this story has to canon events is completely coincidental. Please tell me if anything went down like this.

Trip hesitated at T’Pol’s door. He clenched his hand into a fist and looked around before relaxing his fingers, rubbing at the back of his neck, and finally pushing the button for her chime.

“Come in.”

The door slid open and he found her, seated on the floor of her quarters, a candle burning — definitely against regulation — nearby.

“Sub-commander,” he said. “You wanted to see me?”

“Yes.” It was one word. One word with only three little letters in it, but it was enough to set Trip even closer to the edge he’d been on since he’d gone digging into encrypted correspondence between T’Pol and Vulcan High Command. Even when he tried to tell himself it was Captain’s orders about a suspicious message, he couldn’t shake the lingering guilt of what he’d done. And the way she looked at him now — calmly and coolly without any sense of anger — somehow only made him feel worse. She nodded for him to sit.

“What, uh, what can I do for you?”

“I’m having trouble sleeping.”

“Oh,” Trip answered and a sense of relief washed over him. “Oh, that’s nothing. Doc’s got this spray — one dose knocked me out for six whole hours. Slept like a baby-”

“I’ve been to see Dr. Phlox,” T’Pol interrupted. “He suggested I find someone to … talk with.”

“Oh. Are you sure you wouldn’t be more comfortable talking to Hoshi or-”

“That would require more people knowing about my…situation,” T’Pol answered. “You are already aware and thereby the logical choice. Unless you’re not ‘comfortable’ with that.”

“Situation?” Trip said in disbelief. “It’s not like you’ve got a secret husband or a long-lost sister floating around out there, your father d…” Trip stopped himself mid-sentence when he realized how loud he had gotten. She was no longer looking at him. Her gaze had traveled down to the open flame as one finger rubbed gently along the seam on a cloth spread across the table. “I’m s-”

“This was a mistake.” T’Pol rose to her feet in one graceful motion, blew out the candle and moved for the door. “I will make other arrangements with Dr. Phlox-”

“Now, wait just a second,” Trip said. He reached for her as she passed him. His fingers brushed the fabric of her sleeve before some long ago memory of about Vulcans and human touch pulled his hand back. They didn’t care for it. Her eyes went sharply from the sleeve to his hand, and her head cocked slightly, almost like she was puzzling something out, and if Trip didn’t know better, he could have sworn her expression softened slightly.

“I’m sorry,” Trip said again. “If there’s anything I can do to help you out, I’m happy to do it.” He leaned back against her writing table and crossed his arms across his chest, almost to say 'I’m not going anywhere until you talk to me.' 

She inhaled through her nose before leaning against a counter opposite him, legs stretched out and mirroring his pose. She stared at her feet.

“So what’s eatin’ you?” Trip finally asked. “I mean, other than the obvious.”

“Eating me?”

“What’s bothering you? Why can’t you sleep?”

T’Pol nodded before looking at him.

“Since receiving word of my father’s death, I find myself…overcome…with memories of him.”

“Nothing wrong with that. Pretty normal, actually.”

“By human standards, perhaps,” T’Pol said. “But it is not normal for a Vulcan to be so consumed by the past that it affects our present duties. Or…” She stopped speaking and looked toward the door. Maybe trying to decide if she wanted to back out of the whole thing and ask him to leave.

“ ‘Or’ what?” Trip asked. “T’Pol?”

“I find myself not wanting to sleep,” she finally answered.

“Why not?”

“Vulcan dreams can be-” she paused, searching for the correct word. “-unsettling - without proper meditation.”

“So meditate.”

“I do not wish to, Commander Tucker.” Trip could feel his brow furrowing at her words. Vulcan psychology wasn’t his strong suit.

“Why not?”

“Meditation is meant to clear the mind. Free it of distractions so we may focus on ourselves and our present.”

“Ahhh,” Trip answered. “I get it.”

“Do you?”

“You don’t want to meditate because you don’t want to forget about your father. You keep those memories close to the surface, and it’s like he’s always there with you.”

“Setting aside the illogic of him ‘still’ being where he’s never been, it is not practical for me to carry on in such a way.” Trip nodded and lowered his eyes. “And yet,” T’Pol continued, “I believe there may be a kernel of truth to your statement.”

“Really?”

T’Pol cocked an eyebrow at his shocked statement.

“What should I do?”

“Well,” Trip scratched at his cheek with his thumbnail, “my daddy always said the best way to keep someone’s memory alive is to talk about them. Tell other people what they were like so that even when you’re gone, there’ll still be someone who knows.”

“I see.”

“So tell me about your dad. What was he like?”

“What would you like to know?”

“Geez, T’Pol, I don’t know,” Trip pushed off the desk and paced the room, searching for a question. “What was his favorite food?”

“Vulcans do not eat food for pleasure. Food is merely an energy source to fuel the mind and body.” Trip rubbed at his eyes. This might be harder than he thought. “However,” T’Pol continued, “given a variety of choices, I recall him frequently returning to kreyla with a spread derived from the tolik fruit.”

“Bread and jam,” Trip said with a smile. “Sounds like maybe your dad had a bit of a sweet tooth.” T’Pol raised an eyebrow at him, and he continued. “What else?” He grabbed a datapad from her desk. A photograph of a young Vulcan girl sitting on the shoulders of a man and pointing just out of frame was displayed on its screen. “How ‘bout this? This your dad?”

“That is my father, yes.”

“Well, tell me about it.”

T’Pol took the photo and gazed at it.

“This was my first trip the ground team of a shipyard,” T’Pol said. A new shuttle was coming in to land after a test run. I was not tall enough to see over the other spectators.”

“So your daddy lifted you up on his shoulders,” Trip finished. “That was awful nice of him.”

“Yes. It was.”

Trip took the datapad back and stared at the young girl again. T’Pol would probably kick him out of the room if he said she looked happy, but there was no denying the sense of contentment that was evident on the child’s face.

“What else?”

They sat there for hours as T’Pol told stories about her father, from fixing childhood toys to the closest he had ever come to feeling fear after complications with her birth to their last conversation. It was after they’d taken Klaang back to the Klingon homeworld and T’Pol had asked to extend her stay with Enterprise.

Her mother had been vehemently against the idea. Something about tradition and arranged marriages and bringing shame to the family. T’Pol told him how close she’d come to rescinding her offer to stay aboard when her father spoke up.

“You must follow your own path,” he’d said. “Tradition just for the sake of tradition is the height of illogic.”

“Pops always had your back, huh?” Trip asked.

“Always.”

They stood in silence for a few moments more before a small yawn escaped T’Pol’s lips.

“Getting tired on me, sub-commander?”

“I believe I am, yes.”

Trip waved a hand in the direction of the candle.

“And how do you feel about doing a little meditating before hitting the hay?”

T’Pol thought for a moment and looked at the candle that had grown cold over time before turning back to him.

“The weight of my memories is not nearly as heavy,” she answered. “Thank you, commander. I believe I should be able to meditate and sleep without fail this evening.”

“Glad I could help,” he said as he pushed himself off the table. “And you know, you can call me Trip if you want.”

“Thank you. Trip.”

“Any time.” He smiled broadly as she relit the candle and he took his leave. And that smile carried him all the way back to his quarters. Maybe Vulcans really weren’t as bad as he thought.


	2. Chapter 2

T’Pol could hear Commander Tucker long before she actually reached engineering.

“What do you mean you can’t find it?!”

She couldn’t hear the crewman’s reply, but if she adopted the humans’ penchant for hyperbole, she’d be unsurprised to find half the ship had heard Tucker’s.

“Well then put your goggles on and LOOK!” there was a brief pause as the crewman tried to speak. “PUT YOUR GOGGLES ON AND LOOK!”

“Commander.”

Trip turned to face her, his face still tinged pink from the yelling. Her presence gave him pause, and she took advantage of it. “A word please.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, wiping at his brow as he did so.

“Yeah,” he said. Barely looking back at the crewman, Trip waved a hand in his general direction. “Just…just do your job, crewman.” As Trip squeezed past T’Pol, she spared a look to the recipient of Trip’s wrath. 'Thank you' he mouthed, and she couldn’t tell if the droplets around his eyes were sweat or tears before he wiped them away with his sleeve and turned back to his station.

T’Pol turned back to Tucker. Catching up with and overtaking him easily, she led him back to his quarters and waited for him to punch his access code into the wall and invite her in.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as the door slid shut behind them.

“These kids don’t want to do a lick of work!” he said. “There are micro-cracks all over one of the engine casings, and if Cap’n orders us to 4.8, it’ll probably blow a hole in the side of the ship! ‘I can’t see it, because I’m not really looking' isn’t an excuse!”

T’Pol cocked her head.

“That damage needs repaired,” she answered.

“That’s what I’m saying!”

“But in all the time we’ve been out here, Captain Archer has only had us exceed 4.5 once. It’s hardly cause for berating your staff as you were.”

“Not a cause for — Maybe you didn’t notice, T’Pol, but there’s a lot of people out here who don’t like us! The Suliban cabal! The Klingons! Andorians, Tandarans, those…those weird little guys who tried to steal everything even if it was bolted down!! We have to be able to protect our people! Here and back home, and we can’t do that if our engines-”

“Trip!”

“What?!”

“What’s wrong?”

It was subtle at first, the way his expression changed. Angry over-protectiveness turned to dawning realization and what she had come to recognize as shame before settling into a deep sadness as he turned away from her. With one arm outstretched, he leaned into the wall and stared down at his feet.

“I got a message from home,” he said.

“And?”

“My mom, she uh,” his voice cracked and he had to swallow deeply before continuing, but there was still a shakiness to his words. “She died a week ago. Losing Echo 1 and 2, I hadn’t even heard she was sick before she... Some kind of fast-acting pneumonia.”

“My condolences,” T’Pol said. “Have you spoken with the captain? I’m sure a Vulcan transport could get you home to see your family.”

“Naw,” Trip said. “I can’t leave now. Everything that’s going on? He’s gonna need his chief engineer when we run into more trouble.”

His continuing changes were interesting. During her time on Enterprise, T’Pol had grown accustomed to the human scent and the way their emotions altered it. His sorrow was immense, and yet it warred with an intense desire to regain his composure and lock that feeling away. To hide it from her. For a species that often prided itself on their emotions, the shame they took in a variety of them was puzzling.

And yet, as she watched Trip struggle to close himself off, she found herself less interested in the psychology of humans and more interested in the well-being of the man she had begun to think of as a friend.

“Perhaps you could tell me about her,” T’Pol said. “Over pie? I saw some pecan pie in the mess. I’m sure a steward could deliver a couple-”

Trip shook his head violently, all pretense at hiding his emotions beginning to crumble.

“No, unh-uh,” he said. “I don’t want it.”

“I thought you liked it?”

“I do, but it’s not the same,” he said. “My mom, she makes — made — the best pecan pie. Nothing else like it, probably in the whole universe. She was always offering to teach me to make it, but I never…there was always something…”

He brought his hands to his face, his arms held tight against his body as he leaned into the wall and sorrow became a barely contained hysteria. Every instinct in her body screamed for her to get Dr. Phlox on comms. He could be here with a hypospray of sedatives in an instant. She had just looked toward the button when her eyes passed over a framed photograph of a boy sitting on his father’s shoulders, holding an ice cream cone that dripped onto the man’s balding head. It reminded her of a time not that long ago when Trip stood in her quarters, reaching out to her before stifling his human instinct so he could assist her in processing the loss of her own father.

She stepped toward him, stretched out a hand and laid it on on his sleeve, gripping the fabric and pulling him close. She tensed at first as his arms wrapped around her. A sob escaped his lips as he buried his face into her neck. Before she even realized what she was doing, her arms bent in an embrace that he clung to until his body stopped shaking and his breath came in slow even keels.

“Thank you,” he whispered before pulling away and swiping at his eyes.

“Tell me about her.”

“Oh, she was the best,” he said.

T’Pol lost track of time as Trip regaled her with stories of the woman who’d raised him, supported him and encouraged him to pursue a career in engineering if that was what he wanted — even if it wasn’t what she wanted for him.

“My family went through some tough times,” he said. “My dad…he was a great dad, but he wasn’t the best husband. And my mom, boy, she didn’t take guff from anyone. But even after they split, she made sure we stayed a family. Always put everything aside for Christmas, Thanksgiving and birthdays. Just trying to keep things good for us kids.”

“She sounds like an amazing woman.”

“She really was.”

“I think she might have got along well with my father.” T’Pol didn’t know why she’d said it, and the words were half out of her mouth before she realized what they were. And yet, there was nothing inaccurate about the statement, so she let them hang in the air while Trip cocked his head and the corner of his mouth rose slightly.

“You saying if things had been different, your dad and my mom could have been the first Vulcan/Human power couple?”

“I’m not saying anything.”

“I think you are.” Trip burst into a grin. He was teasing her. A corner of her mouth ticked up ever so slightly. Trip’s eyes had just gone wide at the almost half-smile.

“Perhaps we should return to engineering,” T’Pol said.

“Right,” Trip said with a cough as he smoothed a wrinkle out of his uniform. “Right, I owe Andrews an apology. Poor kid. Didn’t mean to bite his head off.”

T’Pol nodded as they left his quarters. Trip was behind her, and as they walked, she took a deep breath. There was still an undercurrent of sadness to his scent, but there was something else, too. Something that relaxed her muscles and eased her mind.

Contentment. 


End file.
